Prashanth Kumar

Prashanth Kumar is a theatre artist, specialising in intimate theatre, from Mysore. He has been conducting several workshops for children during summer breaks. He has also actively participated as an actor and director in the productions of Rangayana, in Mysuru. He is specialised in developing plays on intimate theatre style with set and lighting.

In this project, Prashanth intends to introduce eight grade students of the Government High School (PUC section) at Akkihebbalu village in Mandya district to the concept of intimate theatre. Intimate theatre is played facing one side of an acting area for the audience much like proscenium, but the wings and the border area of the stage are not used - bringing the audience really close to the performers. He will encourage students to develop Roopantara - metamorphic stories using this theatre style. He has selected four stories from their textbooks for this purpose, of which one story will be performed as a theatre play by the students. These stories are written by famous authors and poets like Nemichandra, A K Ramanujan, Bagalodi Devaraya and Kanakadasa.

Prashanth believes that this exercise will increase self-confidence, strengthen collaborative skills, improve learning, and expand the world view of the students. He also feels that learning intimate theatre will help students to be life-long learners. He will invite several resource people from theatre to run this series of workshops for the students.

The outcome of this grant will be a performance by students in the presence of teachers and community members. The deliverables of the grant would include photographs and video documentation.

This grant is made possible with support from Citi India.